Light Verb Constructions and Structural Ambiguity

Language, Information and Computation(PACLIC 11),1996, 99-107 Light Verb Constructions and Structural Ambiguity Hee-Rahk Chae Hankuk Univ. of Foreign Studies hrchae@maincc.hufs.ac.kr Abstract Previous analyses of (Korean) Light Verb Constructions (LVCs) have failed to provide objective criteria for defining LVCs. The verb ha- is inconsistently regarded as a Light Verb (LV) or as a "heavy verb" depending on its environment. In the face of this problem, I argue, firstly, that all ha-sentences should be analyzed as LVCs when the potential Verbal Noun (VN) has at least one of the verbally case-marked phrases as its argument. Secondly, LVCs (neither LVs nor VNs) are classified into two groups based on their structural differences. Thirdly, LVC sentences in general are ambiguous between the structures of these two groups. Many sentences, however, are disambiguated because the VN in each structure has its own special properties. In this approach, the differences of the behavior of the VN in (LVC) ha-sentences are attributed to their structural differences rather than to "spuriously" multiplied lexical items. I. Introduction Since Cattell (1984) and Grimshaw & Mester (1988), much attention has been paid to Light Verb Constructions (LVCs), especially those in Japanese and Korean (H-S Han 1988, Miyagawa 1989, H-D Ahn 1991, K Park 1992, etc.). These analyses, however, have failed to provide objective criteria for defining LVCs (and hence "thematically incomplete" Light Verbs (LVs) and accompanying Verbal Nouns (VNs)). In Korean, for example, the verb ha- 'to do' and the noun preceding it are inconsistently analyzed as a LV and a VN, respectively, or as a "heavy verb" and a regular noun, respectively, depending on their environment. In general, sentences containing them are treated as LVCs only when the noun is not modified or "moved/extracted", which does not fit with native speakers' intuition. II. Previous Analyses: Multiple Lexical Items Everyone agrees that sentence (la) represents a LVC, which has an object NP Bill-il explicitly as well as a VN phrase SOKAE(-lil): 99 (1) a. John-i Mary-hanthe Bill-il [SOKAE� (-111)] ha-yass-ta. Nom� to� Acc introduction Acc do Past Decl ` John introduced Bill to Mary.' b. *John-i Mary-hanthe Bill-11 [caemi iss-nin SOKAE(-111)] ha-yass-ta. interesting c. *[SOKAE-111] John-i Mary-hanthe Bill-11 ha-yass-ta. One of the most significant characteristics of sentence (a) is that its VN phrase cannot be modified by prenominals or moved as is shown in (b-c). There is considerable controversy, however, over the status of the following sentences, where an object NP like Bill-il does not appear (explicitly) as a verbally case-marked element. (2) a. John-i Mary-hanthe SOKAE� ha-yass-ta. Nom� to� introduction Acc do Past Decl 'John introduced (someone) to Mary.' b. 0 John-i Mary-hanthe [Bill-1i SOKAE(-111)] ha-yass-ta. Gen ii) John-i Mary-hanthe [caemi iss-nin SOKAE(-111)] ha-yass-ta. c. [(caemi iss-nin) SOKAE-111] John-i Mary-hanthe ha-yass-ta. According to H-D Ahn (1991), sentence (a) is always treated as a LVC if the potential VN (i.e. SOKAE here) occurs without the Acc marker If the noun occurs with this marker, it is a LVC sentence only when the noun is not modified or moved. K Park (1992) …

Content truncated to 500 words